Liberarte
by orionmip
Summary: At the end of all things, every single bad thing you ever did comes back to you in the most sarcastic way. Can love be enough to survive this?
1. Chapter 1: Life

Disclaimer: How I Met Your Mother and the characters used are not of my property.

That said… this is my first try at fanfiction in a very long while. I've been having this idea wondering around my head.

* * *

It wasn't just the morning sickness that told Robin she was pregnant.

It was a feeling in her womb, she would say years; it was a feeling in her heart-mind-womb. Three years after her wedding, Robin Shebatsky-Stinson knew she was pregnant. Past prognostics of infertility be gone, this was a child growing inside her and it didn't take her doctor's call of confirmation to learn that she was going to be a mom.

There were a few things to take care of, before beginning to wonder about names and wall colors and onesies she never knew she was going to be searching for.

She had to tell her soon-to-be ex-husband, that he was going to be a father.

* * *

It had happened a week into their second year of marriage. Robin had woken up one morning, found her husband in the kitchen, threw a shoe at Barney, got a slap in response.

Oh, she wasn't expecting any kind of physical contact with the man, especially not THAT kind.

Barney had lost all the color in his face, had dropped to the floor crawling on his hands and knees, sobs making his body tremble and shudder, he's crawling his knees right into the broken pieces of the coffee mug she didn't realize she had dropped, and there's this buzzing in her ears and she can't listen to whatever he is mumbling against her feet and…

Robin doesn't realize she's been walking away from him – kicking away from him – until one of his teeth bury in one of her big toes. Barney's face is pressed against the floor, his nails digging on his face trying to pull his tears away. She sits beside his head, touches her face and finds her left cheek burning. But there's no tears. Not a single tear.

Physical violence. That's a good excuse to get a divorce.

The buzzing is gone.

"Stop it"

Her voice is surprisingly firm. It's been 83 days since she had actually spoken to her husband and she had this whole sketch of what she was going to say and how she was going to say it and the firm tone of voice she was going to use.

"STOP IT!"

But now it's Barney Stinson, crying with a feeling she thought he had lost somewhere in the twenty-four months of marriage to her, who is in the floor mumbling every word she wanted him to say when he came home late, smelling like 6 or 7 different types of perfume or when he disappeared for thirteen days and a half, came home and slept for 2 days in a row.

A year into the marriage she had been happy. Barney had been the husband she knew he was going to be. But then came the long trips to China, Hong Kong, India, Portugal, Ireland. Ten, twenty, forty days yeah but he called every day and told her he loved her and that he was coming home soon. Then he said he couldn't tell her where he was going because it was "work stuff, Robin". Then he stopped calling. Then she heard him talking to his secretary in a very familiar way she didn't knew secretaries – female and very sexy secretaries – could be talked to, even if this was Barney Stinson talking. Then he stopped telling her when he was leaving, and for how long. Then he started coming home smelling like strip-club, over and over and over again.

That's when they stopped talking. Well, she stopped talking to Barney, and she expected for him to care.

But he didn't. He talked, every morning during their not-so-normal breakfast, and told her about how he had seen Ted in the street with the wife and the baby and how he had seen James with a woman. He spoke and spoke, always threw a kiss to the air and left. She guesses sometime he realized she wasn't talking to him so he stopped talking too.

"Barney, stop it"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please, I love you."

The Stinson-Scherbatsky couple, this stubborn couple, hadn't talked to each other in 83 days. And the first thing she said to him in 83 days was:

"Stop it"

"I'm sorry, I love you"

"No, oh no, you don't"

That had to pull string, she thought, and that made Barney straighten up from the floor with his face even paler looking than before.

"I love you"

She groaned. "Oh please, you don't love me. You do everything but love me and I'm pretty sure you've made yourself very clear" she says, turning her face so everything in front of him is the red, hot, swollen cheek of his wife.

He extends his hand and it's shaking. Robin stays still, wants him to feel what he's done.

The moment his fingers lay on her, she jumps up, tells him she's going to be over at Lily's so that he can send her stuff there.

She leaves.

The next time she steps in that apartment, it's eleven months later. She came searching for him at McLaren's, saw him sitting in the booth with Marshall and Ted.

One look, a hand on his shoulder and Barney is hers again.

Robin doesn't know what brought her to this. When the final divorce papers reached her desk at whatever channel she was working for then, she had the first gut feeling that maybe this wasn't the end of their story, that after so many years of craving for this man he deserved one last good talk, one last chance at saying something more than the 1009 messages Barney left on her voice mail.

Talking. Yeah. She laid eyes on him and it was fucking what they did. Over the course of a week, they tried to talk and ended fucking thirteen times.

The thirteenth time, she brought the papers with her. He is smoking a cigar, legs to one side, texting something on his phone.

"Barney, we have to do this" she puts the papers on the bed, in front of him. He throws a look at her, searching for her eyes, trying to find a hint of something. She looks away.

It seems as if he doesn't want to see that she has already signed them.

She starts crying, and she doesn't know why. He pulls his arms around her.

He signs. She leaves.

* * *

The next Barney hears from her, it's on the worst day of his life.

He can't stop shaking since he received that call.

"Barney Stinson, I don't think you remember me but my name is Jennifer Cluke."

"Ahhh Jennifer" he pressed his index finger against his chin. "Jennifer from…2007?"

"No, Jennifer from last year, Barney. Listen, I'm sorry to call you this way but there's something I need to tell you and it's important"

"If you are going to tell me that you have a chi-"

"No Barney, listen to me. There's no soft way of saying this". He swallows. He didn't realize his throat had gone dry.

And then it comes.

"I'm HIV positive. I don't know when exactly I was infected but I was ordered by the –"

He took a quick deep breath. "You are HIV positive. I can tell you, you didn't get it from me. I do regular check-ups… I…"

"No, Barney. I'm calling you because there's a chance I have infected you. We were on and off for a while there, so-"

He hangs up. The phone falls from the desk. Barney stands up.

On and off? On and off? Barney doesn't remember being on and off with anyone… "It's not me, it's not me". He's shaking. "It isn't me. I wasn't on and off with her. Maybe once. It's not me". He's smiling against the fist against his lips.

He's shaking.

"It isn't me"

Then he starts remembering who Jennifer is. Long legs. Long, dark, perfect hair. Not on and off. Maybe twice. Three times tops. What's the chance he's infected if he only had sex with her three times?

"Mr. Stinson. There's a Miss Cluke on the phone waiting. Says she has to talk to you urgently" his secretary's voice brings him back to the office.

He picks up the phone. His hand is shaking. Changes hands. Can she realize he is shaking?

"Look. Jennifer. We were together once, three times tops. You can't… isn't the guy who infects the girl? Because, you know, everything that happens". His voice is shaking. He is breathing hard. Shit.

"I'm sorry, Barney. Apparently the doctor says that everyone who has been in any kind of sexual contact with me has a chance of infection. Not only if it was this way or the other, or once or two times." She sighs. "You have to come and get tested. It's mandatory. And you have to tell anyone who has been a sexual partner to you in the last year".

He sits down. Sexual partners.

Barney throws a punch at the glass table that functions as his desk. It doesn't break, but it makes everything on top of it fall to the floor.

"I'm… Jennifer, I'm married. I'm separated but we… "

There's a long sigh on the other side of the telephone line. "I remember you said something about your wife. If there's been any sexual …"

There's a flash of green and he listens to his office door open and close.

Barney's eyes look up to find his wife – because yes, she's still his wife- in the beautiful red dress she knew he loved, looking at the mess on the floor.

"Robin."

He's shaking. The phone on his hand is shaking, and he places it down.

"We have to… are you okay?"

Robin cares for him. He cares for him. He can't stop a small smile.

"Just fine. Wha-what's wrong?" he tries to get some of the stuff on the floor. He notices she takes a few steps forward. He is sweating. Pulls a hand and tries to dry his face. She attempts to get down and help him but no, she sits down on one of the chairs she helped him choose.

She's fidgeting there, in the chair. The silence is not comfortable at all. They haven't seen each other in weeks.

And she chose this moment to come and...

"Want to get a cup of coffee?" she says.

She wants to have a cup of coffee.

He wants to go run on the street and get him by a bus, but there's something in her eyes that captures him and doesn't let his mind wander upon the resent news.

The test can wait.

He nods, sighs, stands up, pushes the intercom button. "Sandra, please call Miss Cluke back and take note of the address she'll give you. I'm going to go out. Please take care of any business I –"

"I can come back another day if you want to. There's something we have to –"

He pulls a hand in front of her. Stop it.

"Please Sandra take care of the meetings I have. Call Mr. Mosby and tell him I'll be waiting for him tomorrow. Anything else is delayed. Thank you".

He smiles. He isn't shaking anymore.

The test can wait.

She is smiling, looking at him and smiling. There's a piece of white paper that is showing in her bag. If those are the divorce papers he knows she hasn't sent yet to their lawyer…

That's… that's a genuine smile on his wife's face.

The test can wait.

But life, oh. Life can't wait. Life comes like a bus driving the wrong way, hits you and breaks almost every bone in your body.

"Let's go".

_To be continued._

* * *

Author's Note: I want to say something that I know is not an excuse… English is not my first language and it's been a long time since I ever wrote in English so you are going to have to deal with the grammatical errors that escape my eye.

I hope you enjoyed this.

Thanks for reading. Have a nice week :D


	2. Chapter 2: Liberarte

Author's Note: A big hello and welcome to the fellow writers that have reviewed/followed this humble piece. I hope I can make it up to your expectations. I'm a very busy person and I've been trying to find time to write… I wasn't expecting to have something up until Sunday. But I heard a song and inspiration came. I had to do it… tonight. *facepalm*.

* * *

Robin had dragged him once to this experimental theatre show. He remembers clearly she whore the green dress that made her legs long, the earrings that made her eyes shine and the smile that made him fall in love with her once more. She just had that power over him… make him go to this ridiculous place that was obviously someone's house to catch this play her friend Lucianne was in, when he was so damn tired from work. And hungry.

And horny.

He's Barney Stinson, for Christ sake.

He remembers the title: Liberarte. To set yourself free.

"It's beautiful" she whispered to him, squeezing his hand and planting a kiss on his cheek. A wet kiss, because she was crying.

Understandable. He felt moved by the play too. This story he thought was about the typical romantic couple had taken a grip on his heart when it took over the story of a marriage lost in routine, lost in mortgages and life's little chaotic moments. The couple had grown apart, got in the border of a divorce and finally had found themselves back in each other's arms.

It went something like this, or so he understood: Set yourself free, and if you come back you belong to them. Free yourself. Live and find your life. Liberarte.

Barney felt Robin sniffle, hold his hand and place kisses on him anywhere she reached during the entire show. It was nice to have an emotional Robin in town and he found himself wondering when the company was doing another play.

"Promise me" she said, once they were waiting for their cab and she had snuggled her face against his shoulder, hugging him "Promise me you'll never let us go like that, and that if you do you'll come back to me"

Barney noticed the cab had stopped. He'd surrounded his wife's body with his arms, planted a kiss on her head. "You, Robin, are the most awesome, sexiest, wonderful, intelligent, kind, creative, sensitive person in the world. Anyone who meets you thinks that, I can tell. Today you looked at me and you made me fall in love with you all over again. Not that we can rest credit to this amazing dress…" she felt her chuckle against her shoulder.

"Listen to me" he said, and placed a hand on each side of her head, pulling her face close to his. "Everything with you, talking to you, sleeping with you, eating with you… having you in my life is an adventure I wish to have every single day of whatever life I have to live. If there's anything less than routine, it's that: being your husband."

Robin found such sincerity in his eyes that she pulled his face to hers and gave him a kiss so passionate it made into Barney's Top Ten Kisses of All Time list, keeping it going even if the taxi driver was honking for them to hurry up.

The screeching sound of tires had finally thrown them into a fit of laughter.

After pulling themselves together and sharing a Top-Ten-High-Five, they started walking down the street, arms around each other. Barney had started talking about this new guy at work, about the possible approval of Ted's next skyscraper and then about the latest dog the cow had killed when he noticed Robin lost in thought.

"A million bucks for your thoughts" he said, squeezing his arm around her

"Ahhh…" she sighed "I was just dreaming again… that kiss… damn. I feel I'm in a kiss-induced-coma, if that exists." She shuddered. "What is it with you, Stinson? I was expecting an answer like 'Challenge accepted' or something like that."

"What is it with you, Sparkles? Can't a man feel a bit moved by a romantic play?"

She gasped.

"I KNEW IT! I KNEW THERE WAS SNIFFLING COMING FROM YOUR SIDE!"

The kiss he gave her, then… made them jump inside the first cab they found and Barney pay the driver double if they got them home in less than 10 minutes.

* * *

A year and a half after that night, lying in a dark empty room waiting to see if her husband was going to come home, Robin took a look at the tickets to that play.

She kept them. She kept them because every word Barney said that night, she'd held onto them like a lifeline that proved that the man she believed she married was still alive somewhere inside that stranger that kept her in vigil… daring to see if at least for that he'd speak to her.

It was way past 3 AM when she decided to do something about it.

Did he love her anymore?

The sound of the door opening to the apartment woke her up from her thoughts. She quickly placed the tickets inside the plastic bag. Barney went directly to the bathroom to take a shower but Robin could still catch a sniff of… was it Channel N°5?

No. Not now. Not with a gun so close by.

It wasn't until hours later, after she had left the apartment-and-his-life, that Barney found the tickets hidden safely under her pillow. At first he wouldn't recognize them and he played with the bag, watching the blood coming from his cuts stain the plastic.

Liberarte.

Ah. He wept like a child, then.

_To be continued._

* * *

Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful week. Reviews and comments are welcome :D

And remember...set yourselves free!


	3. Chapter 3: Questions

_AN: And it happened again. I think when I really have to work and get things going I listen to music and sometimes romance gets in the air, inspires me and makes me get in the writing mode when there's absolutely other more productive things I have to do. _

* * *

It happened one of those times - those amazing, drawn out of heaven or hell times – when Robin made her way back into his life. Barney didn't know if it was a goodbye, or a hello, o r an "I'm horny and you are the next thing available".

"Stay" she whispered, locking a leg around his calf, when she felt Barney make an attempt to leave her bed

Barney pulls his legs to a side of the bed, sits down. Silence. His fingers make way into his neck, pressing muscles. He feels Robin sit down behind him.

Silence, and there's something warm along his back. It's her hand. She isn't touching him but he's learned the shape of her warmth, and that's her hand trying to touch him. Barney wants to turn around, kiss her senseless, kiss her until everything is right in their lives, until there is world peace and there's no more hunger, and she is his.

She was his. This hell-of-a-year taught him that.

"Stay, Barney"

Robin's face is now on his shoulder, her breath is tingling the little hairs behind his neck awake.

Her alcohol breath.

"Why?"

Her body freezes. She sits straight up. Her warmth is gone.

Barney turns around, becomes the most courageous man on the earth and looks at his wife straight in the eye, without blinking, without crying, without sinking inside her.

"What?" she shudders

"You want me to stay" Barney answers. Strong, deep voice. "Why?"

_Tell me you love me, tell me you love me, tell me you love me. _

Robin faces away from him. Her fingers dig on the forgotten blanket, rolled to a side of the bed. He can feel her rough breaths. He can feel her break.

"What –" she says between sobs, as she presses her hands against her face "What happened to us?"

She is drunk, Barney remembers.

"You want to talk now" Barney raises his voice a bit. Robin is crying on the other side of her bed.

He goes around, stands in front of her.

"I've tried. I've tried to talk to you, to reason with you for the past year, Robin". There is desperation on his voice. He isn't afraid to show her that he is broken too. "I've tried and tried, tried to reach you, tried to make you feel, make you understand but you've been too far gone, Robin, and I don't know if maybe it's too late to chase you back to me"

His voice isn't strong anymore. He is broken. She is broken. They know it.

Barney kneels in front of her. He pulls her head against his chest and she is happy to bury her tears on his skin, marking him.

"You have to tell me, God" he cries into her hair "Is it too late?"

Her arms envelope him for a moment but she soon pulls away, climbs the bed, hides in the bathroom.

Barney leaves.

He gets his answer the following day, when he is going to leave her bed one more – one final – time and she presents to him the divorce papers.

She signed them.

Yes.

Robin gets her answer a few weeks down the road, when she's puking her guts out with another wave of morning sickness and she's realizing that all that puking can't be related to the quesadilla she had with Lily earlier that week.

This, this tiny piece of them, growing inside her womb. This is her answer.

Is it too late?

No.

* * *

"Mrs. Stinson, there's some lab results we have to discuss with you. How soon can you come and have an appointment with me?"

Whenever your own doctor calls you, in the middle of lunch, and tells you there's something wrong with your baby or with you, everything in your world collapses.

Robin's dropped the fork onto her plate and then onto the ground.

"What's wrong?"

She is entered a trance, and it's Barney's hand on her arm that wakes her from it, asking. She came to have coffe/lunch with him in order to tell him he's going to be a father.

Because… he is going to be a father, no? Everything is ok with her baby and she is going to be a mother, and she's going to find a way to make everything right in her life and have the perfect little family idea she had once when she was a child and she didn't know she wasn't supposed to have kids.

Robin pulls her arm away from him.

"How soon can you see me?"

_To be continued._

_AN: Thanks for reading. I have a lot, a BIG LOT, of ideas for this little piece and I'm trying to work my mind around them. Thank you for your reviews. _

_Have a nice night and week. Tada!_


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